DB113 Module: Animatic Mashup: This module we learned new techniques to create movies, we used Adobe After Effects in combination with sketching cardboard modelling and blue-screening to bring ideas alive. This was the first time that I used video as tool for exploration of my ideas. Although the process was long unique interaction aspects where discoverd while making the video. In the conceptual face of a future project I will especially use the learned techniques in after effects to create illusions within video. For feedback on this module click here.

Module DB417 Dreaming democracies:In this module I got familiar with the Designing in Skills (DiS) framework, which you can use to learn and apply embodiment and skilful coping in the design process. DiS can help you to increase your own sensitivity, to share skills with others and to open up to unfamiliar values. Especially the latter helped me in my development regarding the competency Ideas and Concepts. Looking at my own skills and abilities as source for new ideas was an interesting path to follow, the ideas had more personal value, and where easier to explain. For feedback on this module click here.

Final Master Project: One of the competencies where I feel comfortable in is integrating technology, I noticed this because within Industrial design I could help most fellow students with their projects. Over the last year I have written more than 10.000 words in code which makes it easier and more fun to solve problems. I have started my own github account with usable scripts for fellow ID students which I will put all the projects in that can be reused. With my skills now I feel like I can get any interactive piece to work. I have worked with live video analysis in MAX MSP Jitter, Kinect, Arduino, Teensy, spark.io and more. This range of different technologies and the ability to connect them together makes for wonderful possibilities.

Module DB417 Dreaming democracies:The module supported me to use my own first person point of view in order to boost empathy and engagement with citizens and civil servants. Through interviews, presentations and reading I became more aware how to design for the problems of civil servants, most important skill I have herein is to visualize what exactly the problem is. It was interesting to work on social issues as it made me aware how much of our behavior is predefined of our culture. Changing the rules as a civil servant sometimes clashes with the existing culture, to design for this clash meant that we had to work as an intermediary between the civil servants and the citizens. click here.

Final Master Project:My focus in this competency was to understand the user, what skills do children have, how can tangible products support the learning process? Next to a more analytic approach I also learned the value of user studies. The problem for me was that I wanted to prepare the user studies to much, and think of research questions before every test. Most insights from the test where very valuable although the preparation was limited. For future studies I now know exactly what are interesting aspects to investigate, and how to peruse them.

Module DB417 Dreaming democracies:By starting from a social connection perspective in Eindhoven, I explored the future of local democracies, through a specific case, in which I incorporated the local context (community, culture and other nuances). For feedback on this module click here.

Final Master Project: I took a closer look to the educational tools available, this has broaden my perspective on the different teaching methods which was used to formulate a vision for my project. I also investigated why we don’t teach programming in the Netherlands and what is changing in the rest of the world around this topic. I followed projects on Kickstarter, and looked into articles around this subject.

SDL: E-waste challenge, I got nominated for the e-waste challenge, from Utrecht-inc. For the final we had to hand in a business model for how we would spend the 10.000 euro price money. My role was not so much in creating this model but I looked into possible revenue streams for our concept. I learned that I am capable of seeing the bigger picture. The Jury was pleased with hour business model, but in the end the votes from the public made us end third.

Final Master Project: I studied related products in the market and placed my product in relation to these products. Within the development I learned from the competitors, and developed a clear vision and mission for my product for further development.

Final Master project:As I use Illustrator and after effects more and more I start to feel confident in my skills with these tools. I am able to express my ideas visually. Earlier I had the opinion that I needed to be good in sketching, now I see sketching as a tool for exploration for the first ideas, where after the story for the concept can be translated in a illustration. I feel that form and senses is more incorporated in my overall competency development. The development of illustrations can accelerate the development of the ideas and concepts, visualize the analyze complexity and promote the product through branding and photography.

SDL: E-waste challenge, the poster that we made for the challenge was greatly influenced by me, but further developed by Marieke de Rooy. We tried to put to much information on the poster as we thought that the poster would be showed elsewhere. As I looked at the other posters I learned a lot about their designs. A lot used a short scenario as basis for their poster which worked good because it made the user engaged in the concept, whereas our poster was more showing our thinking process, and tried to explain all the aspects at once.

Module DB417 Dreaming democracies:The module focused on socio-technological systems, which gave a specific flavour to the competency Form and Senses. I did not really focus on or developed the aesthetics of appearance. It was far more focused on the aesthetics of the system and to a certain extend, the aesthetics of interaction. Moreover, I gave attention to the aesthetics of the short movies made during the module. For feedback on this module click here.

DB113 Module: Animatic Mashup: This module I learned new ways of expressing an idea in a movie. I learned how I can bring sketches alive. Looking back I don’t think my work is especially beautiful, but it expresses me as a person. Now I know the techniques and can use it to make more beautiful movies in the future. For feedback on this module click here.

SDL E-Waste Challenge: I did this challenge together with Tatiana Villaroel, Marieke de Rooy, Anika van der Sande. As Tatiana knew the most around the topic e-waste, and the fact that she is 10 years older made her naturally the leader. But she has different background than we as designers, we noticed that we think completely different and set our priorities different. This was a really good learning experience for me as I could compare way how handle the creative process to a more linear approach from an engineer. Sometimes it was hard to communicate why some points where important, but for future projects where I have to work in multidisciplinary teams I will most definitely think back to this experience.

SDL Coaching: In my M21 semester I coached 3 groups of 6 second year students who followed the basic design course, the social innovation variant. Each team had 2 ID students and 4 non ID students, it was quite a challenge to get everybody motivated especially the non ID students. There where students who showed no interest at all and the only motivation for choosing the course seemed to be that there where no exams in the end. They all miscalculated the amount of time it costs to generate with a good concept and present it decently. My communication to them was chaotic, and diverse, as it was the first time coaching it was a learning track for me as well and I took the opportunity to try out a few strategies. In the future I will know better when to give structure and when to let a group do its own thing. I used the coach meetings mainly for coaching purposes, but also for teaching. Some groups only needed 15 minutes to bring me up to speed and they where right on track, just sending them back was a waste of time so we always discussed how to continue. In the future I will think of more exercise to do to prepare them better on presenting their concepts.

Module DB417 Dreaming democracies:Most of the module was done in teams (different ones during the module), thus boosting your competency in teamwork. Despite that, I believe that he main development was reached regarding communication. By transferring your ideas via (lo-fi) prototypes and more specifically (for this competency) through videos, I explored how to reflect on my ideas and communicate them to others. Moreover, since one of the lecturers (Caroline) was not able to be present physically as a lecturer, I had to figure out how to communicate effectively via Skype, internet, email and phone. For feedback on this module click here.

Module DB417 Dreaming democracies:As already explained under Ideas and Concepts, using the DiS framework, and using a high pace of iterative steps, gave me additional handles regarding design and research processes. For feedback on this module click here.

Final master project:After last project I knew research is an important element to give strength to your concept. In terms of literature research and combining information I am quite capable. One of the new things I did this semester was printing out all the pictures of all the research reports, products, and websites available on the web. By ranking them on complexity and functionality I could get a clear view on all the different tools. In the future if I need to make a decision regarding a lot of information I will use this technique again as it was quick and effective. I have still a lot of room for improvement in this competency, but although I have ambition to write a paper I believe I lack the knowledge of scientific writing and statistics. If in the future I will continue with this project as a research project I would like to partner up with someone who has this expertise.

SDL Coaching:The course that I had to coach was already quite structured with deadlines for each week, but it took a lot of time to explain all the non ID students why certain steps needed to be taken. It was for me the first time that I had to take this “outside” perspective on the design process. This thought me that I already know a lot of things on intuition which was nice to notice. I saw that the teams that had the most struggles had in the end the nicest work out ideas, and the teams where everything seemed to go smooth had in the end a result that could have been much better. When I would guide a future design process I would let them struggle a bit more if it all goes to smooth. And help making decisions where there is too much struggle.

DB113 Module: Animatic Mashup: In the design process most often there is a point where you want to prove your concept by actually building and testing the concept. As this is the ultimate experience it would give true answers to your proposed design solutions, but it also takes quite a lot of time, or is simply impossible because the technology is not there. Video proved to be a valuable tool to experience a concept that is not yet realized. While making the movie it forced me to make design decisions, this made me realize that some expectations that I had where not true. In the future if the interaction language of a product is not yet clear I will use this tool definitely again. For feedback on this module click here.

Module DB417 Dreaming democracies: Quote from Caroline Hummels feedback I could not have said it better myself. Because one of the lecturers (Caroline) was not able to be present physically as a lecturer, the usual approach that the lecturers of this module take regarding self-directed and continuous learning (a high amount of responsibility), was even increased, since there was not always a lecturer available for consulting. The schedule of the first week was fairly fixed, with deadlines everyday and meeting for discussion and reflection at the beginning of every morning. However, the second week was completely open. The whole group was asked to determine the schedule of the second week, and you had to find consensus within the group to get a feasible and productive process.

On first view asking someone to direct his own learning process AND giving a very specific approach seems to be incompatible. Self-directed learning seems to imply that you follow your own approach and not that you adopt a different approach. Yet, we do not agree fully with such an interpretation of self-directed learning. We feel that there is value in forcing yourself to see it a different way in order to reflect on, value, adapt and/or calibrate your own approach. To us a self-directed learning style is an open learning style (i.e., I want to expand my horizon) rather than a closed dogmatic learning style (i.e., I know best). By asking you to direct your own learning experience we asked you to actively try to get the most out of a module. As we believe that experience plays an important role in grasping and understanding something, we offered you the possibility to base your evaluations of the offered approach on experience, even though this might ask for a suspension of disbelieve.

All in all, we discussed several times amongst the group what self-directed and continuous learning means for you and your study, and how you really take control over your own development. It showed that it remains hard for you and your fellow students to set aside any feelings of hierarchy and the perception and idea that the lecturer knows what is best. This resulted in interesting conversations about the interaction between students and lecturers, and what our educational system entails. And we hope you can use this experience during your study.

Final master project:This is the first time that I fully choose my own project. It is a pity that we are not challenged to do this earlier in the study, simply 3 weeks SDL is not enough to do such a project like this. I can most definitely say that it gives me more ambition to bring this project to a nice result, but at the other hand it is the first time that I have the feeling I am a bit lost. A year long seems like a long time but the time passed by quicker than I would like. Planning wise I have still a lot of struggles, my ambition makes me focused to achieve the goal that I had in mind, which can be good for the result, but not good for my own health. I have learned to scale down a project, and see a result as an in-between result, because there are always possibilities for improvement.

SDL Coaching: I am constantly learning more about how to coach, and while doing that I learn more about myself and this study. There is no better way of reflection than be in the role as coach. I finally feel that I have learned a lot during this study which feels great, I also learned that I do a lot better as coach if I would have to do this again.

Final master project:Analyzing complexity is always the competency I have difficulties with, because for example the diagram I made with all the different programming tools, is while reflecting placed under form and senses, while for making the diagram data has been analyzed, mapped and categorized. The same counts for several project over the past years, I believe I am very strong in this competency as I am very antithetical minded. I see myself as visual thinker because when thinking of complex problems I always see it as an image which I than reproduce in a sketch, post it mapping etc.

Next to that this semester I have made 3 different programming sketches wherein I made a discovery protocol for an I2C bus, and programmed an end user program. I have learned to divide the code up in several logical steps which makes it understandable to edit even by someone else. During the coding I mapped out the different functions visually to keep the overview, when I planned new functionality it was first visually, than in comments and in the end the actual code. This way the code was structured immediately.